


Bone (For Those Who Don't Grow Old)

by MedusaSterling



Series: Colors (All Manners of AUs) [3]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Dying Isabelle, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Heartbreak, Revenge, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 21:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19472989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedusaSterling/pseuds/MedusaSterling
Summary: There's a meadow in Idris. It is there that he takes his little Huntress after they reconcile. It is there that, with the full moon as their witness, they seal their bond. It is also there, that he takes her as she is bleeding out in his arms. This meadow, it's theirs.





	Bone (For Those Who Don't Grow Old)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [White (For Death And Mourning/When Our Bodies Burn)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19472959) by [MedusaSterling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedusaSterling/pseuds/MedusaSterling). 



> The second of my Colors stories I wrote and number 9 in the series finds us once more in that meadow in Idris, hundreds of years earlier...

There's a meadow in Idris. It is there that he takes his little Huntress after they reconcile and start to mend the wounds they had torn into each other's souls by accident. It is there that, with the full moon as their witness, they seal their bond and tie their souls together forevermore. It is also there, that he takes her now as she is bleeding out in his arms, her breath growing more shallow with every moment, her heart weaker with every beat. 

Here on this meadow, he holds her, the stars on the night sky like a blanket of light and peace above them. The moon is full and red. How terribly fitting. He wants to scream. Instead, his voice is soft as he tells her stories, sings age old songs to soothe her spirit, ease her pain. It's all he can do for her. He brushes through her raven hair with gentle fingers, wipes away dirt and blood from her slender neck, careful of the bruise that somehow still found the time to form there. Her necklace is gone, but it doesn't really surprise him. Made in his father's forges it could withstand a lot, including demons, but against a Prince of Hell it held no chance. Maybe he will look for it on the battlefield, _after_. Maybe not. There's a groan from his Huntress and he shifts her a little in his arms, speaks soothing promises into her ear, how there's nothing to fear, how she's save, how she needn't worry. She manages a smile, weak and bloodied but a smile, and teases about Seelies’ inability to lie. But he spoke no lies on that moment. All of it is true. Here in this meadow she is save, she has nothing to fear or worry about here. The only shadow approaching is inevitable and there is no reason to fear the inevitable. He does not worry about her dying, does not fear it. That would imply uncertainty, hope to avoid it. He has none. He knows she is dying in his arms this very moment with the surity of winter following summer. That does not make any of this easier though.

People like to believe that Seelies don't love. That they find no merit in monogamy, that they cannot bind themselves to just one being for live. They assume Seelies don't understand love, don't understand, don't feel that desperate devotion that comes when someone else's life is suddenly more meaningful to you than your own. People are wrong.

He know love, he understands it - as well as anyone can ever understand love, at least - and he feels it. This soul-searing, heart-rending, awe-inspiring abysmally deep love that makes the world turn on its axis, moves the center of gravity into a person instead of the planet's core and turns everything upside down. He feels it, for this still so very young woman bleeding out in his arms. The time he was given with her was awfully short, compared to the time he has lived already. Barely a blink compared to his life expectancy. It feels like a cruel cosmic joke, that he should find the one woman he will ever bind himself to only to lose her after barely more than half a decade. Half a decade of which the wasted four precious years pretending to only use each other for intel, and lost another year to bigoted politics, bad decisions and stubbornness. In the end, three months had been all they got. So little time to spend with the one you love. 

She draws a ragged breath, then the labored up and down of her chest stops. The moment seems eternal until she draws another sputtering breath, and another. He releases a breath he had not realized he was holding.

There's a bottomless rage in him, fed by the hopelessness of the situation, by his inability to help her. He wants to make them pay for hurting her. He knows better than to take revenge against her murderer though. Even with Shadowhunters and warlocks by his side would they fail to win against Asmodeus. But the Prince of Hell is not the only one at fault for his Huntress's suffering, only the most immediate one. And while he is rather untouchable without assembling a force to rival the Heavenly host (or finding someone with the mark of Cain, but those aren't exactly in abundance) the people that brought on the situation are not. And they will pay. 

The Morgenstern boy with the demon blood first, immediate a threat as he is, the downworld as well as shadowhunters are already calling for his head. 

Then, that fanged little whore that stole their time because she decided to be a continual pain in the ass. She may not have any involvement in the situation at hand but she has harmed his Huntress before, and he would not be surprised to learn of her involvement. It isn't as if there are many who would care whether she died, anyway. It would almost be a service to society. 

And at last, he will gather his father's army and bring winter to the Seelie queen's springtime kingdom. He will call her to account for everything. Most of all for his Huntress's death. 

Had that childish bitch not toyed with their affections for each other when she had countless others to do her bidding, he would not have talked himself out of asking his Huntress for answers after that fire message. 

Had she not made him a knight (him, son of winter, a knight of the Spring Queen's court!), he would have been free to help his Huntress battle her inner demons. 

And had she not blatantly lied to his Huntress, knowing the danger it would place her in, she would not be bleeding out in his arms right now. 

He will kill her. With his own hands he will strike her down for all that she has done. For the lost time, for the shackles she placed on him, for every drop of blood his Huntress spilled in the fight. He doubts many outside the court will so much as shed a single tear over her corpse. Killing that lying snake truly would be a service to society, more so than the vampire, even. 

The woman in his arms whimpers in pain. It tears him apart. She was always so strong, if sometimes only on the surface. To hear her pain so unfiltered… Her slow heartbeat stutters, skips. He knows this is the end. He whispers his love into her hair, tells her it's alright, that she can sleep, that he will always be there, that he will watch over her… He presses his lips against her forehead in a kiss and her heart stops, her lungs stop struggling. One last breath escapes her lips, that he catches in a kiss. Then she is gone. Her body, bruised and bloody and still painfully beautiful, is all that remains.

He does not think to build her a monument in that moment. He just pours out all his anger and despair, all his rage and sadness and desolation into the ground, into the meadow and nature reacts. Frost roses, his plant, the one whose leaf used to adorn his cheek, spring up, grow more and more, build a cave of wood and thornes, the vines lignified. He rises, still cradling her in his arms and carries her into the cave of roses. There's a stone there, it's a start. She will rest in a bed of roses, protected by glass and gold. He will form it with his own hands, she deserves that much. Outside blood red flowers shaped like stars spring up from where her blood hit the ground.

Snow falls on a meadow in Idris. It is here that he took his little Huntress after they reconciled. It is here that they laughed and danced. It is here that, with the full moon as their witness, they sealed their bond. It is here that he promised her forever. It is also here, that he took her as she was bleeding out in his arms. 

It is here that she breathed her last. 

It is here that she will sleep, undisturbed. Eternal in the only way left for him to give. In memory and death. It is here that she will finally be save, at peace at last.

This meadow, it's theirs.


End file.
